And here we are, at another gala!

…Uninvited, of course. Although I’m sure if she wanted one, my fox wife could have requested it…

She didn’t. But that didn’t stop me from attending anyway, nor from dragging her along with me.

The look on Livvie’s face hasn’t gotten any less hesitant since we arrived, especially after our grand entrance – most likely the grandest this two-bit god’s celebrations have ever seen!

…What was her name again? Oh, I forget. I don’t really care anyway, nor do I care about the gala itself.

No, what I care about is the feelings of fear they radiate around them, their wills shaking like candle flames in a breeze.

I finally understand why grandmother does it.

“I’m sure you do, my child.”

“Aha, there you are. I was wondering when you’d arrive.”

“So impatient. You do realize most are expected to enter via the gate, yes? Even I follow that basic rule of etiquette. It reduces and justification they may have for asking you to leave, after all. Their fear tastes even better when you know for a fact that they have no choice but to let you stay out of their precious standard of hospitality.”

“But I did enter via the gate, grandmother! Specifically, a gate I tore in the real, and I happened to enter precisely here.” I tap the ground at my feet with one toe, beneath the glasslike table I’d constructed on arrival from which I’d been leveling hungry smiles at each and every passerby.

It's too bad Sekhmet isn’t here too. Well, I suppose I could have dragged her as well…

But I wanted to be here with Artemis.

I’m not even sure why, with our more recent conflict… although it’s mostly passed, and I’ve accepted what is for what is.

Even if her fascination with me itself could be suspect, she’s confirmed her lust for me is in fact genuine.

…Despite her fear.

She’s a strange, strange woman. But that’s fine. I’m strange myself; after all, I cling to a memory of loving her as a substitute for experiencing the actual emotion.

It’s rather depressing when I think about it. But I digress.

Even this is rather boring though, I suppose.

“Why exactly did you keep doing this for hundreds of years? They all react the same way, by not actually reacting,” I half-whine to my ancestor.

Lamashtu chuckles back. “Patience, my child. You need to learn to exercise patience, and satisfaction in little things. Say, the twist of a leaf in the wind, or the sudden gasp of a recent arrival when they first cross into the range of your aura. ‘Oh, so sorry,’ you say. ‘I can’t turn the bloody thing off,’ you say. And they dust their jacket and give you a worried look before trying and failing to keep their composure as they continue on into their social rounds. Disrupting their etiquette, my child; that is where the satisfaction lies.”

“Huh.”

…

…

“I don’t see it.”

Grandmother offers me a questioning side-eye.

But that’s fine. We don’t have to agree.

We’re family, and that’s enough.

And I’m still bored.

“Look… I appreciate your invitation to… people watch, was it? But I think I’m going to go do something else for now.”

I turn to my wife. “I’m going to go bother Sekhmet, I haven’t done it in some time now and I don’t want her to forget about me – not that she could, ha! But that brings me to another question, I guess. This,” I gesture around us, “is a light pantheon gala. You are officially welcome here, whereas I am not. So… would you like to stay, or to come with me?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I give her as gentle a look as possible while making an effort not to pressure her through our link.

And she looks conflicted… but not about what one might think.

She’s conflicted about whether she wants to go somewhere with me, after I’d dragged her here despite any more potential hits to her reputation…

I think.

Either that or it’s already strained her existing alliances that I’m here to begin with. Which… wouldn’t surprise me much.

Well, either way. If she doesn’t want to come with she obviously doesn’t have to.

Finally, after one more look around, she lightly smiles and nods. So that’s that then.

“You or me?” I ask her, the actual question obvious.

Without another word, we vanish in a flash of blue flames, reappearing in a relatively sterile room. A long, well-polished wooden table stands in the middle, surrounded by oddly designed chairs, all of them occupied.

And the occupants are staring surprise, including the target of my visit in a seat of obvious power at the end, seemingly similarly surprised.

“You’re here,” Sekhmet blurts, her eyes wide.

“I’m here,” I echo with a toothy grin.

…

The staring continues until I release a small sigh. “These are your retainers, then? So do they have any idea who I am?”

Our involuntary host rubs the bridge of her nose. “No, these are my investors. Mortals. Most of them weren’t yet born by the last time you walked this plane to my knowledge.”

“I was,” interjects one of the apparent mortals, specifically a visibly aged indra.

And then she says nothing else.

So I just nod. “Very well.”

I create a pair of chairs from glittering ash, promptly taking a seat and gesturing for Arty to do the same. “Well, don’t let me interrupt you. I was bored so I thought I’d drop in and say hello, maybe see what you’re doing. How is Sahura?”

A tight smile crosses Sekhmet’s face. “Everyone, let’s take a short recess, yes?”

After a series of mumbled agreements, the mortals stand and leave the room…

Leaving only divines.

…

She’s just sitting there watching me expectantly over tented fingers.

…

…

“What do you need, really?” she finally ask.

I hold my hands up defensively. “Nothing, honest. I’m just looking for something to do, sitting around at… whose gala was that? Oh, I forget. Anyway, it was getting boring so I decided to come here, and Livvie came with.”

My wife offers a polite nod, much more formal than me. Which doesn’t particularly surprise me.

“A great many deals and decisions are made behind closed doors, you know. Aside from a handful of outliers, most of the mortals who’ve known we were associated are long dead. It would ease my dealings, and quite possibly your own, if we kept that association under wraps, considering how rare it is for our brothers and sisters to share that kind of random gossip with their followers.”

“And why exactly is that? Wouldn’t negotiating from a place of power be more beneficial?”

Sekhmet glances to the side at a large sheet of paper on the wall with a handful of colored lines across it in seemingly random patterns. “Have you considered asking Tathra the same question?”

“Nope!” I reply with a grin as I lean back in my chair, putting my hands behind my head in a faux stretch.

The blood goddess lets out one of the smallest sighs I think I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a variety thanks to Nyx.

“You should ask him then, and leave me to my business. It will unquestionably benefit both of us, considering the advisor you took from me has been continuing our collaboration throughout your disappearance.”

Huh.

I wonder what that all means. But I can do that from here.

Tathra, I intone through our bond.

My retainer immediately replies with a feeling of attentiveness… before it registers that he can’t actually reply through it.

I rub the bridge of my nose. “Right. Well I guess I’ll do just that. I’m assuming demanding my tribute in front of those ‘investors’ of yours would be harmful to your bargaining position, so I’ll spare you for now. But I haven’t forgotten, and I’m low.”

“Very well, if you insist.”

…

…

We sit in silence for a moment while the look on Sekhmet’s face gets slowly more and more expectant, even a little impatient.

“Alright, fine. Even I can take a hint. I’m going to come back and bother you later so don’t pretend you don’t expect me.”

And I choose to open a rift behind us, which rapidly begins sucking the assorted paperwork spread across the table into the void, much to my subordinate’s visible chagrin. I’ve always enjoyed the effect a sudden rift has on other divines, but especially mortals.

But that will have to wait for another day.

Without another word, I dissolve my portable throne as well as Livvies and tip backwards into the opening, smoothly wrapping the now loose ash around her body; the bare void would do her a great deal of harm, after all, and she’s still nowhere near her full strength following her recent injuries.

Not even a moment later, I’m pulling us through another rift in another very similar space, with a very similar effect on the paperwork on the very similar table, surrounded by very similar chairs and very similar mortals.

But with my economic agent in the seat of power, and his reaction is quite a bit different from my other subordinate’s.

“Greetings, my master,” he says with a degree of formality while rising to his feet to offer a much more formal bow. “I suppose I already know the purpose for your presence. A question, was it? A command?”

“A question,” I answer.

…

“These mortals, ‘investors’ or whatever your old boss said? Should they leave the room?”

A small smile colors his face. “No, my master. They are loyal servants, all of them.”

I nod. “Good. Tell me what you’ve done while I was indisposed, especially our dealings with Sekhmet.”

His smile gets bigger…

And then I regret the next five hours of my incredibly long life as he dives into endless figures and charts.

So, so many figures and charts.